Article excerpt

The Tennessean

While awaiting sentencing for distributing child pornography, Timothy "Casey" Richards writes out his blog updates, the G-rated ones for FreeCasey.com and the X-rated ones for Gay Boy in Jail on Blogspot.

He uses his phone calls from the federal prison in Leitchfield, Ky., to dictate them to friends and supporters in Nashville and elsewhere. They patiently post his words online or record them for Podcasts.

On both blogs, Richards rants about being targeted by the government for being gay, a scapegoat in a national investigation that he says shouldn't have ever involved him.

FreeCasey.com includes a running count of his incarceration1,135 days, as we write. Gay Boy in Jail includes graphic sexual fantasies and dreams. And they're both perfectly legal, attorneys and First Amendment experts say, although warnings from Richards' attorney prompted his supporters to take down the Xrated blog recently. With sentencing set for November, attorney Kim Hodde said, she doesn't want to take any chances. The prosecution already cited portions of the blog in a sentencing recommendation-one of them Richards' theory that a certain prison guard is secretly gay.

Nashville resident Richards, 27, was convicted in October 2006 on 11 charges stemming from distribution of child pornography and related charges. He faces a minimum of 15 years in prison. He got into the business nearly a decade ago, as an 18-year-old involved with a 15year-old boy. The two made sex videos and put them on the Web. …